Teenage Years

I never thought I would get to this stage. Well, I’m fifteen and I’m a teen. What I’m talking about is the part of this teenage stage where you get confused, pressured, stressed, and exhausted when all you’ve been doing is far more lighter than office jobs that our parents do. I study, I sleep and eat and take a shower, and then play. Is that even exhausting?

I have petty problems that aren’t really worth my attention. But I worry over it. I’m constantly checking on how I move. Is it refine? Am I sitting properly? Is my hair okay? Do I laugh too hard? Is he watching me? “Oh my god, I have pimples on top of my nose!” And then I try to hide.

You get the blasted pimples. You can’t poke them or you’ll end up hiding inside your house until you age. You start waiting, the loooong, dreadful wait of the day when your pimples are miraculously gone. I stopped applying blush on my cheeks, obeying my Mom at last. I stopped wearing make-up, finally realizing how I’m damaging my young skin.

I am conscious of my body, especially my skin. I want my Mom’s fair skin while I’m tan. The human mind is so odd I could cry. I’m tan and I want to be white. White people want to achieve tan. Am I nuts?

I don’t want fats on my belly. Every after meal, I try to stand up for as long as 30 minutes or even more just to prevent getting these fats. Might as well prevent than eliminate later, right? I plan on using cucumber on my eyes. I noticed, those who wear eye glasses get dark circles and I have no explanation for that. From now on, I try to eat a fruit a day just to feel adequate and healthy.

Everyday I shower because I can’t work if I don’t feel clean. I can’t stand dry hair or smelly breath. Everything must be clean. I have everything on my study table – punchers, paper clips, pencils, colored pencils, oil pastels, brushes, crepe papers, construction papers. Complete. As if it’s my office table. I don’t like borrowing.

I just realized, that the descriptions of adolescence that I read in my school books before are actually happening to me. The over reaction, the confusion. It’s a roller coaster ride, baby. When does this stop? When I stop growing? When I’m finally, at least, 5″7 tall or something like that? When this process ends and I have to click “finish” already, I hope I get the fruit of these worries. I’d be mature by then, worrying on bigger, major and more important problems, facing them with equal calmness as the wind. Surely, I won’t be fretting over pimples forever.

4 Responses

Oh, my. You probably have noticed I write a good bit about grade school, but very little – in fact, nothing – about junior high and high school. That is because those years were high misery for me.

I was involved. I did things. I had friends. And I was so absolutely, horrifyingly self-conscious I sometimes wished I would just disappear.

Sometimes, when I had to walk into a room where people were going to (GASP!) look at me I would pretend that I was Audrey Hepburn or Sophia Loren acting out my part in a play. It usually worked, but I suppose the psychologists would call it dissociative or something.

Anyway – I was a shy high achiever, which is pretty tough duty. But it ended. For me, the change into a self-assured, competent adult happened when everyone stopped paying a lick of attention to me. Unfortunately that day didn’t come until I was in my 30s and living in West Africa, but it did come.

It will come for you, too. I’m not much for advice giving, but I will make an observation – to the best of your ability, focus on developing your skills. Do things you enjoy. Try new things. Experience competence, even in the smallest things. Laugh at the absurdities of life, and never, ever be afraid to cry.

And remember – every single one of us out here still experiences flashes of what you’re experiencing now. It’s just the way it is ;-)